I've been meaning to sign up to Goodreads.com for ages, but I've only just gotten around to it. The site's pretty good, and allows readers to rate books without writing a whole review. That's quite clever, because the proportion of people who write reviews is very low, and just clicking 1-5 stars without having to go in-depth or justify the rating is handy.

The book can be found at: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16114425-bane-of-souls

So, if you've read Bane of Souls why not add it to your shelf and perhaps rate/review it? I'll probably add some questions in the future, and maybe a quiz.Thaddeus

All the original chapters have been redrafted, a few new bits have been written, revised and slotted into the original chapters and the first redraft is now entirely done.

There's still quite a lot of what might be called 'structural work' to be done. The flow needs sorting out, the chapter cut-off points need shifting and, most importantly, I need to sort out the beginning.

It might sound odd to not have done the beginning properly at the start, but I find the first words and sentences of a book the most difficult. Bane of Souls was different, because it began as an exercise to keep me in the habit of writing (I decided to do it properly and self-publish a few chapters into it). I've got a few ideas for the start and will decide on that fairly soon.

I also need to decide on what the cover should be. I had what I thought was a good idea in mind for months, but doubts led me to make a quick mock-up and I found that it really didn't work. No rush with the cover, of course, but unlike last time I want to get it done well in advance.

As well as adding bits and making the story flow better there's also the general question of quality, which can be hard to assess. There are some chapters/scenes that I think are good enough to be published right now, but most of them need some work.

There's quite a lot to do, but things are progressing pretty well. After a week of map-making (which was quite novel) I'm glad to be working with words again.

I've started work on the map for Journey to Altmortis, which is actually going slightly better than expected. That said, I'm no artist and I'll definitely be back in my comfort zone when I get the map done and move onto casting a critical eye over the recently written new scenes.

However, I have decided to put up an artwork page. I won't be adding any more as the menu's busy enough, but I think it's a good idea to have somewhere that covers, maps and any extra stuff can go. It'll also be somewhere that slightly larger maps can be found. As a Kindle user, I'm well aware that eBooks are inferior to the physical sort when it comes to maps and the like. So, I'll probably have a slightly cropped and perhaps simplified map inserted into the Altmortis eBook, and have a more extensive/detailed version here.

At the moment, the cover for Bane of Souls and two simple crests (for Geldfels and Kemelheim) can be found on the art page.

I've done all the new scenes that need adding, for now. A few of them might need trimming or expanding (one in particular may need changing according to how I slot it into the main text) but the core's done.

A few scenes I'd been planning to add felt like filler when I looked at them again, so I decided against adding them, and a few I managed to combine. I've still got little additions to do. These are mostly things like correcting errors or improving continuity, as well as small details to try and make the world more realistic/immersive.

Progress on writing the secenes was slower than I'd hoped (given I decided against writing a few of them), but hopefully the minor additions will be done pretty rapidly.

The book's still a long way from finished, though. After checking/redrafting the new bits I then need to slot them into the 20 original chapters, and at least two more redrafts will be needed to sort out the flow of the story, add/cut what's needed and to polish off the details and improve the general quality of the exposition/dialogue.

I also need to get the cover sorted. It might sound odd to be worrying about that at this stage, but getting the cover done early is a very good idea. If there's an issue with the art or a delay then it gives the writer time to overcome that without delaying publication, and it's reassuring to get it done early. I cocked this up with Bane of Souls by doing the cover last (although I was lucky to get the lovely and talented Lee Yoong to do a great job), which delayed the release by a couple of months.

Redrafting's always trickier than a first draft, but editing can be particularly tricky. Deciding which scenes should go where and whether certain bits need elaborating upon or simplifying (or even axing altogether) is rather difficult.

I'm still writing new material (continuity and character/story development stuff) and trying to work out what should go where. I've read the reviews of Bane of Souls (thanks to the delightful fellows who wrote them, and to the splendid chaps who write reviews generally) and will hopefully address any potential weak spots raised there in Altmortis. There shouldn't be any real gaps in knowledge (this happened in Bane of Souls necessarily, as mystery was at the heart of the story), although there are a few plot twists. The start has yet to be set in stone, but in the early chapters there's one in particular which I really rather like and wiill hopefully get the reader nice and interested.

I have been writing regularly, and hope to get most of the new bits written by the end of this month, but that depends on how easy/hard the writing turns out to be. After that I'll check and redraft the extra bits, then improve them and insert them into the main story, and then check that to see how it flows.